By Ronan Glon

Wednesday, Mar 5th, 2014 @ 9:00 am

The 2014 Renault Twingo has debuted at the Geneva Motor Show.

Exclusively offered as a five-door hatchback, the next Twingo is shorter than the current 141-inch long second-gen model in spite of its extra set of doors. It ditches all visual connections with the previous models and adopts a revolutionary new design that borrows a noticeable amount of styling cues from the Twin'Run and the Twin'Z concepts that were introduced last year.

The 2014 Twingo shares its platform with the upcoming smart forfour, making it the first rear-engined Renault since the boxy 8 was phased out in 1973. The car will exclusively be available with a gasoline-burning 0.9-liter three-cylinder engine offered with either 70 or 90 horsepower. The engine will be tilted at a 20-degree angle in order to fit under the floor and free up a sizable amount of space inside the car.

The rear-mounted engine enabled engineers to give the city car a best-in-class turning radius, but it also rules out the possibility of offering a diesel-powered Twingo because the firm's widely-used dCi mill doesn't fit behind the rear axle.

Renault promises nearly every part of the next Twingo's cockpit will be customizable in order to appeal to a trendy target audience. The car will pack more high-tech equipment than before in order to move up a notch on the market and compete against popular city cars like the aging Fiat 500 and the new Peugeot 108.

Buyers seeking open-air motoring will be able to order the Twingo with a large cloth sunroof that retracts at the push of a button.

The next Twingo will go on sale across Europe next summer. The car's smart-badged sibling will be unveiled over the course of the summer.